Better With You- Season 1(2010)

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Summary

Maddie and Ben, in their 30s, have been dating for nine years. They know each other inside and out, a relationship of contentment and affection, committed to each other but not married. Maddie's younger sister, Mia, has been dating Casey for seven weeks.

Both in their 20s, they share a c'est la vie attitude, are smitten and thrilled to explore the many things they don't know about each other yet. But when they announce they are getting married and having a baby, it's news that totally throws Maddie for a loop. Surprisingly, the girls' parents, Vicky and Joel, are thrilled. Married 35 years, they have recently adopted a carpe diem attitude, much like Mia's, mostly due to getting older and losing a much of their savings when the economy tanked. With three very different relationships tightly intertwined in one family, will each couple begin to see things a little bit differently? From executive producer Shana Goldberg-Meehan (Friends, Mad About You), Better With You is instantly relatable

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Episode guide

01 - Pilot

In the series premiere, when Maddie and Ben are invited by Mia to meet Casey, they think they're meeting just another in a long line of boyfriends. But Maddie soon realizes how serious the relationship is when Mia and Casey excitedly announce ... they're engaged! Floored by the news, Maddie feels like her little sister has leapfrogged over her -- jumped ahead of her in a huge life-changing way. Reluctant to be a negative voice, she resolves to be supportive and let their parents, the critical Vicky and Joel, be the ones to object when the time comes. But when Mia tells them that she and Casey are getting married, the girls' parents are thrilled. Especially when they hear the rest of Mia's news....

02 - Better With Firehouse

Realizing that Mia's apartment will be too small for them when the baby comes, Mia and Casey go house hunting. But Casey's unusual taste concerns Mia, especially when he sets his sights on a dilapidated old firehouse. Maddie tells Mia to just go along with his choice and that a man younger than 27 never knows what he wants anyway. Meanwhile, now that Joel has recently retired, the already retired Vicky finds her husband getting on her nerves because he doesn't know how to spend his new, free time.

03 - Better With Ben

Everyone dreads the gimmicky family Christmas photo card that Joel obsesses over every year. When Ben, who has been left out of the card despite being with Maddie for nine years, is secretly hurt after Joel invites newcomer Casey to be included, he and Maddie devise their own rival Christmas card. Meanwhile, when Mia and Casey realize they're not good at saying "no," they ask Maddie and Ben to be the ones to say it to their future child.

04 - Better With Fighting

When Casey and Mia have their first fight as an engaged couple, Casey implements his plan that stops all arguments cold. In an effort to help, Maddie decides to show them how arguing can actually be healthy for a relationship, but ends up exposing a fault in her own nine-year relationship with Ben. Meanwhile, the longtime married Vicky and Joel quietly resolve their arguments by simply hiding each other's things.

06 - Better With Halloween

It's Halloween, which is also the date of Maddie's birthday, and she feels like she can never have a real birthday -- since the holiday always steals the spotlight. So Mia and Casey offer to give her a Halloween-free party at their new home, the renovated firehouse. Ben, however, wasn't listening when Maddie told him what she wanted for a gift, so Joel steps in with advice about what he would do in a similar situation. Meanwhile, Maddie and Vicky warn Mia that couples living together shouldn't look behind each other's "curtain," for fear they might learn things they should never know about each other; when Mia finds a mysterious videotape among Casey's things, she wonders just what it might reveal.

07 - Better With Road Joel

Joel and Ben accompany Casey on a road trip to Vermont to help him move his stuff out of storage. Ben looks at the trip as an opportunity to bond with Casey; but Joel sees the road trip as his annual chance to go off -- way off -- his salt-free diet. Meanwhile, the Putney women organize Mia's baby shower, and Casey's hard-to-please mother, the earthy but rather quirky Ariel (guest star VALERIE MAHAFFEY -- United States of Tara, Desperate Housewives, Northern Exposure), comes for a visit. Mia goes out of her way to be accepted by her future mother-in-law, but things get heated between Vicky and Ariel when both want their future grandchild to call them "Nana."

08 - Better With Flirting

Mia and Casey are excited when Maddie gets them a meeting with one of the top wedding planners in the city -- the charming but very expensive Lorraine Ashley (guest star REBA McENTIRE -- Reba). But the too-good-to-be-true arrangement turns awkward when it looks like Lorraine is trying to upstage the couple's pending nuptials. Meanwhile, Ben realizes that he has been with Maddie for so long that his "flirting muscle" has gone soft.

09 - Better With Thanksgiving

When Vicky's oven breaks down at Thanksgiving, everyone but Vicky is relieved. For once, the rest of the family can enjoy a normal Thanksgiving dinner and not endure one of Vicky's unsavory concoctions -- such as maple-syrup turkey stuffed with shrimp and raisins. While spending the holiday at Maddie and Ben's apartment, however, Mia accidentally finds a ring of her late grandmother's hidden in the linen closet, a ring which was presumably stolen. It seems the unmarried couple has some explaining to do.

10 - Better With Christmas Crap

Mia and Maddie know their parents will give them a good portion of guilt if they don't uphold the Putney family Christmas tradition of spending the holiday together at their lake house, but the girls hope to get out of it this year. When Maddie finds out that Mia and Casey are using the pregnancy as an excuse, she tells Vicky and Joel a tall tale to keep from having to go.

11 - Better With Skinny Jeans

When Mia accuses Ben of ripping her favorite pair of jeans, she drags him to the store, where he has to break the tough news to Mia: It's time for her to wear pregnancy pants. Meanwhile, Joel decides to get into shape after he finds out he's ranked last in the "fantasy husband" draft website Vicky has with her girlfriends, and Maddie goes to extreme lengths to impress Casey with her high regard for the U.S. Postal Service.

12 - Better With a Cat

After parents-to-be Mia and Casey adopt a cat, Mr. Meow-gi, the pediatrician tells them that they shouldn't have a stray animal around the baby once it's born. Maddie and Ben enter into a spirited competition with Vicky and Joel to take over caring for the cat, all under the impression that if one of them takes in Mr. Meow-gi, then Mia and Casey will name that couple as the baby's guardian.

13 - Better With Valentine's Day

Casey has big plans for his first Valentine's Day with Mia, but Ben and Joel tell him that their rule is to never buy expensive Valentine's Day gifts for their ladies because doing so would set a costly precedent. Casey goes ahead with his plans anyway, and Ben realizes that he, too, wants to really show Maddie how he feels. When Joel finds out, he decides to compete with them no matter the cost -- and gets singer/pianist MICHAEL FEINSTEIN (guest starring as himself) to perform.

14 - Better With a Leather Jacket

Casey, who is going on a job interview, borrows a leather jacket without telling anyone, unaware that bad luck always follows the wearer of that particular jacket. Everyone recalls their own bad experience while wearing the jacket, including Ben, who accidentally dropped a blanket on New York Yankee outfielder NICK SWISHER (guest starring as himself) as he attempted to catch a fly ball.

15 - Better With a Shamrock

More than anything, Ben wants his name on a shamrock posted on the wall of his favorite bar. But his dream may be dashed when he learns that the bar's new owner is New York Yankee outfielder NICK SWISHER (guest starring as himself). Ben can only hope that Nick won't remember that it was he who accidentally dropped a blanket on him during a baseball game, preventing Nick from making a fly ball catch. Meanwhile, Mia and Maddie communicate in their own secret language their reluctance to accompany Vicky to a charity event.

16 - Better Without a Couch

Casey finds out that his ex-girlfriend, Jessica (guest star SAMAIRE ARMSTRONG -- Dirty Sexy Money, Entourage, The O.C.) wants to pick up the couch that she lent him before their breakup -- the same couch that Mia and Casey currently use. Since the Putney girls are known to be the jealous type, Ben assures Casey that he'll come up with the perfect plan to help him get rid of it without Mia knowing the real reason. Meanwhile, Maddie updates Vicky's and Joel's wills, but finds they won't take her professional efforts seriously.

18 - Better With Lying

On the eve of Mia and Casey's engagement party, Maddie gets a feeling that the super romantic and charming story Mia has been regaling everyone with about how she and Casey met isn't true, and Mia starts to doubt her sister's story that she and Ben met while building houses for the poor. Meanwhile, Vicky and Joel, who have always said they met chasing a foul ball at a baseball game, have the engagement party at their country club and realize they can save some money by using the opportunity to promote Joel's campaign for the club's treasurer.

19 - Better With Dancing

During their "first wedding dance" class, expert dancer Casey realizes that Mia has two left feet. He purposely tanks his moves so he can let his bride-to-be look better, and asks the dance instructor, Phillip (guest star DEREK HOUGH -- Dancing with the Stars), to keep his secret. Meanwhile, Ben runs into the legendary LARRY KING (guest starring as himself) at his hotel and asks for advice on how to handle a spat he had with Maddie about Vicky and Joel -- but Ben downplays what he really said about them.

20 - Better With Crying

Once the very pregnant Mia realizes her condition won't let her take part in all of her wedding festivities, she and Casey decide to reschedule the wedding until after the baby is born. As they go about trying to get their deposits back, the bridal shop manager refuses to refund Joel's money. Meanwhile, Ben finds out that Joel is trying to keep from crying while preparing his wedding toast, and tries everything possible to make Joel shed some tears to get him back for the time Ben was ridiculed for crying when his childhood dog died.

22 - Better With the Baby

In the season finale, Mia and Casey decide -- while Mia is in labor -- that they should be married before baby Charlie comes into the world. The rush is on to make the wedding happen, as Casey and Ben dash to City Hall for the marriage license; Maddie puts herself in charge of finding an authorized person to perform the ceremony; and Vicky and Joel hurry to the hospital's gift shop to find the "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" items they need to fulfill a wedding custom.

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